Less than 10 years ago, the U.S. was, on paper anyway, against
starting a war without being attacked. It was against aggression. Then
came Bush 2. Then came preemptive war. Then came unprovoked attacks on
Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya. Clinton's bombing in Yugoslavia and
sanctions on Iraq were aggressions that led up to outright military
attacks.

Now policy experts and Washington figures speak euphemistically of
"preventive war," and they send the term aggression down the memory
hole. They delete it, as in this document,
which is concerned with only one thing, the success or failure of
"preventive war" on Iran in achieving some goal like ending Iran's
nuclear program or ending the regime now in power. The rightness or
wrongness of aggression initiated by the U.S. does not even come up.
Washington is oblivious to the very serious consequences of ignoring the
moral aspects of its decisions. Perhaps I am naive, but I admit being
shocked to see how quickly moral capital has been dissipated and
uncivilized actions that violate rights have risen into acceptance in
America. This deterioration in the respect for rights internationally is
mirrored by a similarly shocking and like deterioration domestically.
Such declines are plentiful historically. That's no surprise. The speed
of it is what surprises me. How quickly it is that people abandon
morality and/or change their concept of what is right and wrong. How
quickly they abandon a long-accepted moral compass.